Month: April 2017

Increasingly, we as consumers as well as marketers have become reliant on mobile technologies. The days of sitting down at a desktop computer to search a topic are long gone. Setting out time during a busy work schedule to sit at a desktop is now just an inconvenience. Digital Marketing with mobile technologies also works to keep budgets low but reach the most people. With that being said, digital marketers need to look to mobile technologies to build successful campaigns.

According to Primal Digital Marketing, “an estimated 87% of people shop using their cellphones.” In order to serve this overwhelming majority of the market, marketers can turn to mobile friendly sites to reach out to the largest group of potential customers. To make shopping, searching and reviewing products and services online digital marketers need to ensure that their sites and advertisements are mobile friendly. Having a mobile friendly site is an important piece to completing the user experience puzzle. Sites that take too long to load, are difficult to navigate, and are clogged with images and pop-ups are are the quickest to drive potential customers away. In order to reach the 87% of customers who shop online having a clean, concise, and mobile friendly site is key. Digital marketers can select mobile themes and alter websites to a mobile version to better serve customers. Doing this will keep customers coming back instead of heading back to the search results.

In today’s world, we often don’t leave the house without our cellphones. Digital marketers can benefit from mobile technologies through an increase of sales. On great feature of online mobile marketing are call extensions. Businesses that advertise with Google or have mobile friendly sites have the option to embed a phone number right onto their site. These call extensions make it easy for customers to ask a question or make a purchase with just a click. By omitting mobile advertisements with call extensions, marketers are missing out on a large customer base. When we make things easy for potential customers, there is a greater chance that they will come back or convert for a purchase. Because cellphones allow us to research and convert to purchase, they make the buying process a lot simpler. In turn, it increases the amount of potential impressions, clicks, and sales a company can get.

One final reason that mobile technologies are worth pursuing in digital marketing is because they allow companies to engage with their consumers. With Google AdWords marketers can see how users are interacting with their site. With mobile technologies, marketers can really see from the customers themselves how their interactions with their products or services went. It’s much easier for a user to snap a photo, take a review video, or write up a short review on a cellphone than it would be on a desktop. It allows the customer to post their thoughts as well as get the companies response in real time. If these features were not available, many may omit this process because it is a hassle to take time and sit down for a review. Mobile technologies significantly decrease the middle time in the buying process. Instead of dragging out the process a shopper can research, purchase, and review right from their phone. If this process wasn’t as condensed companies could risk losing more companies. Social media apps are another feature of mobile technologies that allows companies to engage with their audience. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great places for companies to promote their brands. They can be real, casual, and relatable with customers. These features were not always possible with traditional marketing practices. Digital marketers can keep content fun, light, and current which keeps customers coming back to see what is new. Customers can leave reviews, comment their thoughts, and give advice all in real time. Marketers can also visit the social media sites of their customers to see what other insights they can gather. Social media sites are easy to access on mobile devices which make them great to keep coming back to as a consumer.

Ease, insight, cost, and engagement are all reasons that mobile technologies have become increasingly important to marketing campaigns. Utilizing mobile technologies in marketing campaigns can add to the success of business endeavors for marketers.

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Offsite SEO is another part of SEO. Offsite SEO is, using links to build authority for a site. According to class lecture and Moz, “offsite signals constitute for approximately ⅔ of the current Google algorithm.” Users can build links by posting a site link to other sites. While posting to other sites helps to build authority with Google there are both high and low quality sites for link building. The best places to post links are on “do follow sites”. “Do follow sites help to aid a site with ranking. No follow sites are not assets to those trying to improve SEO. Great places to create do follow links for a site include,Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Other forms of social media that are positive factors of SEO are Blogs, Tumblr, and Pinterest. By posting a link to your site on one of these profiles you can drive user traffic to your site and consequently aid the SEO for your site. Using blog sites such as Reddit are especially beneficial because you can put your link under topics that draw the attention of users interested in the same content. With this, users have the ability to draw more attention to their sites than on random sites. Googling, “top do follow sites” will help a user find options to place their links. Commenting on other blogs is a good way to build links. Link exchange is also a valuable tool. That involves finding another site to link to your site and then doing the same for them. An even more effective way is three way link exchange (Sutton). Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and finally Site C links back to Site A. All of these techniques are proven to increase SEO.

Increasing SEO is possible for any user. Understanding basic principles and practices are important to effectively increasing SEO. Link building, site editing, and content posting can be time consuming but they will aid a site in achieving a higher site rank on Google. Looking to increase SEO is possible for anyone if they follow the correct paths.

Here are a few additional tips that can be beneficial to marketers trying to make the most out of Offsite SEO principles. I mentioned before that social media platforms are great places to place links and create link juice. Using these social media platforms can also be a way to connect with friends and get them to share your pages and information. Most social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit allow you to follow certain types of pages within the site. This way you can find users already interested in topic that will more than likely contribute and interact with your link or post. A second tip for offsite SEO would be to start blogging. As a marketer, if you’re looking to promote your company, creating a blog with unique content can be a great way to increase site rank. You can use the blog to talk about related content, incorporate links, and drive people to the site. Creating a blog with plenty of backlinks and relevant content works really well to contribute to page rank. Utilizing social bookmarking sites is a third tip to help Offsite SEO. Social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, Delicious, and StumbleUpon help to drive users to your site through submissions. Moz says that you need to be careful in which tags you use to really reap the full benefits of Offsite SEO. Using YouTube is another way to create some Offsite SEO traffic. While YouTube is a no follow site you can create video and product reviews or topic videos that relate to your website. This way when people watch or view your website online they can find the video link in the bio and follow it to your site for additional information.

There are many different ways to optimize a site through Offsite SEO. Link building is a principle that can be easy to do but needs a great deal of practice to get the most out of a link. Following basic Offsite SEO principles, with a little practice is great for any marketer.

The Display Network allows advertisements to be placed on Google or on websites targeted for consumers

Display Advertisements have become increasingly important for marketers as our dependence on technology has increased. Marketers looking to reach customers earlier in the buying process or customers already searching for similar products and services should turn to Google’s Display Network to improve their digital marketing campaigns.

The Google Display Network includes features that allows users to find appropriate audiences through contextual targeting, manual placements, and remarketing. Using the Display Network, keywords from a campaign within Google AdWords can be used to find websites and apps to show advertisements through contextual targeting. Users can also handpick which websites to show Display Ads on using manual placements. Finally, a digital marketer can follow customers that have already viewed their site with additional advertisements through remarketing. The Display Network allows users to reach audiences, monitor performance, and consequently reach campaign goals.

The remainder of this post will cover showing advertisements on the Google Display Network. “Targeting methods like keywords and affinity audiences get your ads on to the Display Network.” (Google Adwords Study Guide) Using targeting tools such as “target and bid” and “bid only” help to control how ads are placed on the Display Network. With the “target and bid” method, ads will only show for the target method that has been chosen. If a user has chosen to target based on keywords, then an advertisements under certain keywords will enter the auction. The “bid only” feature allows an account manager to increase the bid amount for certain affinity audiences to increase the likelihood of advertisements showing on pages for these groups. This method doesn’t restrict ads to only show under targeted keywords unlike the “target and bid” method. “Target and bid” narrows the places that advertisements can show. “Bid only” doesn’t restrict where ads show, but it does increase or decrease the likeliness of an advertisement showing based upon the bid amount it is given.

In addition, users can place advertisements on specific sites using managed placements. Managed placements allow a manager to hit sites that are used by potential customers or sites that relate closely to the product or service they are trying to market. Picking specific topics to target is another way that marketers can choose where advertisements show on the Display Network. Similar to AdWords, the Display Network allows for targeting based on negative keywords, language settings, and devices. When exploring the Display Network, keeping in mind the basic AdWord principles will help any novice user to navigate the program in no time.

As consumers and internet users we are constantly using keywords. When we type searches into Google or any other search engine, we are utilizing keywords. According to class notes, “consumers use keywords to define what information, product or service they are looking for”. The keywords that consumers use help marketers to collect information about their behaviors and better serve them in their searches. For instance, keywords let marketers know how far into the search process a consumer is. If someone were to search “mountain bikes” on Google, it could be assumed that they are just doing some basic, preliminary research regarding mountain bikes. If that same consumer searched “mountain bikes for sale” or “best mountain bikes” a marketer could assume that this consumer is farther along in their search process, they are now actually looking towards purchasing a mountain bike. “Long tail keywords typically tell us that a user is farther along in their research/purchase decision process.” (Sutton) At this point a marketer could decide to use Google AdWords to promote their business to convince this consumer to convert on a purchase.

A supplemental tool to Google AdWords is the AdWords Keyword Planner. The Keyword planner is used with Google’s Search Network. The Keyword Planners basic function allows users to “search for keyword and ad group ideas, see how a list of keywords might perform, and even create a new keyword list.” (Google Support) The Keyword Planner allows users with the most accurate data about the traffic and popularity for a respective keyword. This is useful to marketers because it allows them to see which keywords are popular, what their competition levels are and what the suggested bid for a respective keyword would be. All of these elements contribute to a successful AdWords campaign. For a campaign surrounding Tesla Motors a marketer may want to see what keywords would be most beneficial to this brand. Using the Keyword Planner, the marketer may search “top electric cars”. From there, they could judge how many people on average, are searching this given keyword. This intel tells Tesla if it should consider bidding on this keyword. If it is a highly searched term, they would want to show up when a consumer searches “top electric cars” to maintain its prestigious reputation. When Tesla uses the Keyword Planner, they can also see how competitive this keyword is. This means how many other marketers are trying to show for this keyword on Google. This is vital information for a marketer to take into consideration when trying to make a successful AdWords campaign for a client. Also available in the Keyword Planner is the suggested bid amount. The suggested bid amount helps marketers to determine what a certain keyword or ad group may cost them in AdWords. The information that can be obtained using the Keyword Planner is the first step in building effective AdWord campaigns.

Choosing keywords is an important factor for any AdWords campaign. Different keywords may rank differently among different demographics. The Keyword Planner has the ability to be set for a certain country to ensure that the best and most accurate results for a given geographic region is used. Referring back to the Tesla example, a smart digital marketer would run different searches for the different countries that Tesla does business in. “Saloon” is another word for a car in the United Kingdom. In the United States, that means something completely different. Tesla would be wasting money and time if they tried to use the same keyword in the two different regions. Keyword Planner settings allows you to compare different keywords over time to see how they perform. Understanding how a marketer can manipulate Keyword Planner settings is useful when trying to build a successful campaign.

In conclusion, the Keyword Planner is a great start for any digital marketer looking to create a successful campaign with useful ad groups. The Keyword Planner assists with the research portion of AdWords. By gathering intel on what keywords work well, which keywords are important to focus on, and what that will cost a campaign a marketer has the ability to hit the ground running in Google AdWords.